Notes on Tender is the Night Themes

Tender is the Night Topic Tracking: Sickness

Sickness 1: After the duel, Abe was sick in the bushes.

Sickness 2: Sick and injured men were still visibly present in Switzerland, and posters and other reminders of the war still remained. The pride that the Swiss first felt about their part in the war was fading as the killing continued.

Sickness 3: In her letters to Dick, Nicole kept referring to her sickness, and she repeatedly wrote, "excuse all this." She told him about her experiences with doctors, and how she wanted to leave the institution in Chicago. Some of the letters were desperate, with Nicole pleading for Dr. Diver to help her with her mental problems.

Sickness 4: After a month of receiving no letters from Nicole, Dr. Diver began to receive letters that seemed sane and normal. Her later letters read, "I am slowly coming back to life...I wish someone were in love with me like boys were ages ago before I was sick." Book 2, Chapter 2, pg. 124

Sickness 5: Mr. Hannan jokingly asked Dick why he was fooling around with his aunt and what he was doing in Munich. Tommy remarked that Dick doesn't look very well.

Sickness 6: Frau Kaethe Gregorovius asked Franz how Nicole was doing. She assumed that Nicole must be sick since she saw him so much, and she told him that she was not fond of Nicole. Franz told her that he had to take care of Nicole since Dick had been away, but he told her that Dick would be returning from Rome the next day.

Sickness 7: Kaethe accused Nicole of being less sick than she acts, and said that, "she only cherishes her illness as an instrument of power." Book 3, Chapter 1, pg. 239

Sickness 8: When visiting Mary North, Lanier was waiting for his parents in their suite and he told them that he had taken a bath in the same water as the sick child. Dick told Lanier to go take a bath in their room right away.

Sickness 9: At the café, Tommy said to Dick, "You don't understand Nicole. You treat her always as a patient because she was once sick." Book 3, Chapter 11, pg. 308